Home Organization Tips from a 99-cent Store

Ever watch one of those home improvement shows on cable TV where a family has their house reorganized? Towards the end of the show, TV viewers are given a tour of the reorganized home or room and we come to find out that storage bins and other organizational baskets, boxes and doo-dads cost maybe $10 or $20 each.

If you don't have a problem spending money like that on boxes to organize your stuff, then you may not care to read on. However, if you would rather spend your money on more important things as opposed to overspending on nonessentials (like organizational cubbies), then continue on.

When Pic 'N Save first stepped into the market, people had a snobby way of viewing the chain. Once the company turned into Big Lots, all of a sudden people were talking about how they loved the store and could find such great deals. The only problem is that Big Lots has become a little expensive for a lot of well, junk. So, if you want to splurge (in other words, buy a lot of stuff for a small price), look into lesser known discount stores for the real bargains.

Marukai is one such place. Think of it as an Asian 99-cent store. Not everything is 99 cents and not everything is all that great, but you can find some deals that will help you organize your home or whatever space for cheap.

For starters, most of their plastic organization bins can be found for under $1. So, why not buy a bunch of these as opposed to going to a place like Target or The Container Store where you will get charged a few dollars per container. Most people don't look at it this way, but it's just a box to store your other, more expensive stuff, so why overspend?

In fact, the store has a whole plastic section that ranges from organizational bins to salad strainers and microwavable tupperware. Another little organizational tip on the cheap is to purchase the microwave-safe tupperware, at 99 cents each, and preplan your food for the following week. This means you will be planning your entire menu for the week, cooking it and then portioning it off into your tupperware. It's a good way to save time during the week and also watch what you eat.

The store also has kitchen basics such as the already mentioned strainer as well as utensil organizers and other things you can place in small drawers or closets.

These days it seems as though stores end up marketing the idea of organization and people buy into it if the advertising is pretty enough. The only problem is that they end up overspending on items that are the same as products at discount stores.

So, save money and buy cheap when it comes to the non-important things so that you have money to splurge on more important items (whatever that may be to you).